


Suffocation

by LazyAyze



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst w/ a Kinda Happy Ending?, Arguments, M/M, Smoke doesn't know how to be a normal human being, Suicidal Decisions, Talk about near death, There's kinda one sided love in this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 22:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyAyze/pseuds/LazyAyze
Summary: Mark just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a fleeting moment, the room tainted with a foreign substance. At the time, it seemed to be one or the other.James did what he thought was right.





	Suffocation

The urge to throw everything off the countertop is rising. Every glass beaker and vile, every document and instrument. Even the stuff that probably wouldn’t be all that good to be exposed to can end up on the floor at this point. Smoke’s paper is covered in scribbles, almost every note blacked out with pen. His knuckles are bandaged, a few specks of blood dotting the cloth.

It’s been a bad day.

Actually, no, scratch that, the past couple of weeks can just go to hell.

Everyone has those days where ya get up and just want to go back to sleep, to not deal with the shit everyday has. Everything you do is tiring and miserable from the moment ya wake up, it seems to be that way even when you aren’t doing anything. And ya just feel utterly disgusting.

For Smoke, this month has been that way.

No action, just bed rest and arguing with a baguette. No fun, just boredom and annoyance. No joy, just dissatisfaction and the need to punch the living shit outta  _something_.

(Mark just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time.)

 

_______

 

The bandages wrapping around his hands are courtesy of the punching bag. After such a long time away, stuck in some pristine room that constantly smelled like Doc and faintly of Trou du Cru, it’s a magnet to Smoke’s stress and anger.

Every punch sends a shot of pain through his nerves, causing his body, fingers especially, to ache, contradicting the month’s exhaustion. The punching bag swings, defenseless to each oncoming punch and slightly creasing the leather. Other than the sound of chain and overworking the body, the gym is quiet.

The quiet has always been Mute’s cover. Out of nowhere, he leans against a beam just a few feet away.

Smoke doesn’t falter in his training, opting to keep conversation out of the picture. Every second that Mark uses to stare at him, head tilted and emotionless, James gets angrier, splitting his knuckles wider and wider.

“James,” the other monotones, arms crossed in what’s guessed to be annoyance. His body language doesn’t matter right now though, it’s the first time Smoke’s seen him in a while.

He’s wanted to see him for so long, has wanted to check up on him, but he’s been kept away until now.

His fists hit the leather again in routine. He clenches his jaw to keep himself from spitting insults. “ _What?”_

There’s a moment of silence, used for a moment of assessment. Mark’s eyes briefly land on his knuckles, a fleeting look of pity following. It’s as if Mark’s looking at a pathetic object, a broken invention, something that he should be proud of, but it’s just a disappointment to him, maybe even everyone. And really, isn’t that what Smoke is?

Pain blossoms through his right hand as he puts his entire strength behind the final punch. He then stops and turns on his heels quickly, glaring at Mute. He runs his fingers over his knuckles unconsciously, the skin red and purple. “What now, Mark? Huh? What little _thing_ did I do to inconvenience ya now?”

Mark hesitates before pushing off the beam, the gears in his head turning slowly, carefully.

Smoke can feel the tension in the air, suffocating and floating between them with every dreading second of silence, every time Mark refuses to talk.

But Mark’s said many times he doesn’t know how to do this. He’s never done this before.

Mark stares, his composure already slipping from his grasp. “ _Please_ don’t do this.”

He’s said that already, a few times, pleading, in fact.

“What Mark? Don’t what? It’s not my fault you don’t want to deal with the shitty hand ya’ve been dealt.”

Mark scoffs, shrugging his shoulders and looking away. “I can’t do this with you if this is how you’re going to act. You can either grow up or continue acting childish.”

(It was a fleeting moment, the room tainted with a foreign substance. At the time, it seemed to be one or the other.)

“First, you really wanna wait even longer to do this? And second, that’s just fookin’ _rich_ coming from you, the 27 year old. Christ, I really do think ya sucked some bloke off.” Smoke steps off the training mat, that fucking _tone_ reverberating through the empty gym, walking away from Mute.

Smoke knows he’s hit a target. “Are you kidding me?” Behind him, Smoke hears the tapping of shoes hitting styrofoam padding. “I’m sorry, but damn it, are you that crazy? _That_ suicidal?”

James grabs his water bottle, struggling to take off the cap as his voice rises. “Me? The suicidal one? _You_ wanted me to leave you. Couldn’t let that happen, sorry, babe.”

The footsteps stop. “ _I_ took the risk. What _you_ did was reckless.” A pause. A realization. “You were going to kill yourself and you knew, you _didn’t_ _care_.”

It was carefully constructed, his words and Smoke’s former plan. They’re both trying to keep it together.

(James did what he thought was _right_.)

Smoke crushes his bottle in his bruising and bleeding grip. “I wasn’t gonna let you suffocate to death, Mark! It seemed like someone was gonna die- like it or not that’s how things are- and that somebody was gonna be me if it actually came down to that!”

Mark’s cracking- James is too but that’s usual. The younger’s hands are shaking. “I’d be responsible for-!”

“And I’d be responsible for yours!” And with that, he storms out of the gym.

   

_______

 

James goes through with his impulses and throws his pen across the room. It hits the wall and pathetically clatters to the ground, which somehow puts him off even more.

He puts his face in his hands and groans loudly, absolutely _done_ with everything. He’s spent the last month in a hospital bed, threatened to be strapped down by Doc with every movement he made. He was forced to not see Mark since he couldn’t leave and the other never showed up, leaving him worried sick. And, oh great, look at that, as soon as he’s out of the medical wing, he’s immediately put into an argument with the one he wanted to see for almost _30 soddin' days_.

When he showed up in the canteen after discharge, looking for Mute and not even considering eating food ever again, the man just blew him off, pissed and tired with James for saving him like it was some crime.

He’s put himself in his lab, not working but stressing is practically the same fucking thing as of now. Smoke can’t even remember the last time they had a fully fledged fight; a disagreement, yes, but not this. Not something as bad as this.

He’s a grown man, has seen his fair share of shit, so why can’t the other just back off; let him do what he wants. It was either him or Mute, and Smoke knows who’s more important. Who’d care if his ass was grass? More people would care if the youngest was gone.

But he knows Mark would have cared. And he still does.

So now James is just waiting, as per usual with Mark. They’re not going to drop it until everything seems to be resolved.

The door to the lab has always been noisy when opened, so this time Mute doesn’t have anything to keep him hidden. James doesn’t turn around when the other enters the room.

For a while, it’s quiet. Too quiet.

“Fucking say something, don’t just stand there and stalk me,” Smoke grouches. He refuses to turn around and face him.

There’s an exhausted sigh. “How do we do this?”

“It’s simple. We _don’t._ ”

“I don’t think that’s what you want.”

James scoffs. Mark knows him too well, knows they both hate being away from each other for too long. On a daily basis, Smoke would follow him around like a stray dog that Mark fed, leaving him head over heels for the tall man.

He’d say he hates being predictable towards Mark, but he knows he’d be lying.  

“James,” he gets closer, the door finally clicking shut, “I went in there thinking I wouldn’t be trapped, it was my choice.”

“And it was a stupid choice at that,” James turns his head, not quite over his shoulder, but he can see Mark in his peripherals. It comes out of a restricted throat roughly, making itself to be a crude remark.

“But you’d kill yourself.” Mark’s right behind him, watching him with his arms crossed. “For me.” Underneath his words, Smoke knows he’s asking if his choice was all that smarter.

Smoke pauses, staring at the counter he’s sitting at. He knows the answer, even if he wasn’t actually questioning.

“You’d be killing me yourself if you had died.”

(He forced the mask over his head, not giving a shit about himself. Outside the room, more terrorists swarmed.)

“You can’t be doing that. I’m not your top priority, _especially_ not on missions.”

He get’s it. He doesn’t want to but he get’s it. Smoke frowns at the countertop, hunched on his seat and picking at his bandages. “It’s good neither of us kicked the bucket then, huh?”

Mark glares at him, dropping his arms. “This isn’t a joke.”

“Oh, I know.” It was never meant to be a joke. All of it, the constriction, the poison ruining his airways, the coughing and weak body next to him as he held his gun. They’re lucky the team got to them in time, or else, Smoke guesses, they’d both be dead. He was serious about dying, no second guesses or anything, and he knew what he was going to do.

He can be a stupid man, can be deranged at times too, but he finally found someone so special to love. Things like that kinda just go through your head when you’re in his predicament.

He slowly turns around on his stool, leaning towards Mark and finally looking at him. “So what does this mean?”

Mark looks open now, his serious front slipping when Smoke said he understood. Smoke doesn’t usually see him so vulnerable, and the last time he did it was a month ago, in a room full of poisonous toxins, pleading, almost crying for him to not do it. As his shoulders drop, he says, “I just want to know that you’re not gonna do it again _._ ”

They sit in silence for a few moments, staring at each other. A part of Smoke is tempted to ruin everything with an inappropriate joke, hell, maybe just laugh like Sledge just dropped his hammer on Blitz’s foot again while looking into his brown eyes, but no, he doesn’t. In the end, he nods. “I won’t.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yeah, I will.”

Mark comes forward and carefully, as if he’s scared too, grabs one of James’ bandaged hands, hesitating before running his thumb over the white cotton. They stay quiet for a few more minutes, sitting in the overhead lights, some unidentifiable feeling in the air, and hopefully it’s not a chemical James accidentally let loose during his rage. However, James knows what they’re both thinking; their both too close to think two different things in this moment. They both know James is lying, they both know that he loves Mark to where he’d do it again, no buts.

Mark just better hope it doesn’t come down to it again.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this is all over the place or something, I'm struggling to tell.
> 
> My tumblr is https://ayezeeismee


End file.
